Seniors stand
as their departments are called and they receive their degrees.

COMMENCEMENT
2007

Photographs by Ricardo Barros

The roar went up as soon as his name was announced during Commencement
as the recipient of an honorary degree: Muhammad Ali — to many,
The Greatest. But as always, the greatest stars during the day were the
new graduates themselves: 1,127 undergraduates and 716 graduate students
who soon would walk through FitzRandolph Gate as Princeton alumni.

“You have left an indelible mark on this University, just as it
has left its mark on you,” President Tilghman told the graduates
and about 7,000 guests at Princeton’s 260th Commencement June 5,
before launching into a list of the students’ achievements in academics,
athletics, and public service. “Through it all, you were the first
group of students in Princeton history to have the opportunity for all
four years to procrastinate on facebook.com,” she added, to laughter.

The event, like those before it, was part celebration of accomplishment
of all sorts and part pep talk as students began their post-Princeton
lives. Three-time boxing champion Ali, now frail, received a standing
ovation as he walked with assistance to receive his honorary degree as
a doctor of humanities; his citation noted his successes both in the boxing
ring and as a humanitarian. A few moments later, the audience rose again
to honor Robert Fagles, the retired Princeton professor and renowned translator
of classics such as The Aeneid. In all, seven people received
honorary degrees.

Tilghman used much of her address to oppose a proposal by the U.S. Department
of Education that would impose standardized testing on colleges and universities.
“The notion that a federally mandated standardized test could be
used to measure learning flies in the face of one of the great strengths
of the U.S. education system — the tremendous diversity among universities
and colleges,” she said. “Our system ensures that for each
college-bound student, there is a college or university designed with
his or her talents and interests in mind. After all, students starting
college are not cut from the same cloth, and if we are successful, their
college experience will nurture and develop their distinctive talents
and interests and motivate them to find not one, but many ways to use
their education to make our world a better place. The homogeneity bred
by standardization would almost certainly drain color and vitality from
this rich national tapestry.”

Federal standards also would restrict universities’ academic freedom,
Tilghman asserted. “Academic freedom does not provide universities
with carte blanche by any means, and it requires a considerable degree
of self-regulation by all members of the university community,”
she said. But applied from outside academia, she continued, “standardized
testing as a means to assess student learning jeopardizes the freedom
that universities need to craft their educational programs and fulfill
the individualized goals of our own students.”

In addition to honoring degree recipients, Princeton took advantage
of the Commencement ceremony to honor teachers. Four Princeton professors
received awards for outstanding teaching: Eric Gregory (religion), Sanjeev
Kulkarni (electrical engineering), Kenneth Norman (psychology), and Alexander
Smits (mechanical and aerospace engineering). Four New Jersey secondary
school teachers also were recognized.

The valedictorian was economics major Eric Glen Weyl, who credited Princeton
with forcing him “to ask questions and think about ideas far beyond
my personal experience.” The salutatory address, Princeton’s
oldest student honor, was delivered in Latin by Maya Maskarinec, a classics
major.

Commencement capped four days of activities for seniors, including their
first Reunions, the Baccalaureate service, the prom, and Class Day. John
Fleming *63, the popular emeritus professor of English and comparative
literature, gave the Baccalaureate address Sunday, June 3, to what he
called the “Class of Destiny.” At the Class Day ceremony June
4, seniors took pride in being the last class admitted to Princeton by
former dean of admission Fred Hargadon, and they celebrated “Dean
Fred” by making him an honorary class member. Class president Jim
Williamson wondered in his address whether his classmates knew what Hargadon
saw when he sent them their “Yes!” letters. “It will
probably take the rest of our lives” to uncover that, Williamson
said.

Between the events, seniors reflected on the experiences that tied their
class together. For Naila Murray, it was this year’s bonfire celebrating
football victories over Harvard and Yale. Nathaniel Schwartz remembered
grade deflation: “We had to work harder to get the same grades as
classes before,” he said. “But we rose to the challenge.”

Ramon A. Gonzalez-Mieres, who received his Ph.D. in geosciences, brought
his mother to Princeton from Venezuela to watch him get his degree. Gonzalez-Mieres
himself returned to campus with his wife and 5-month-old baby from California,
where he recently began working. He reveled in his triumph. “Finally
I made it,” he said. He had thought “many times” during
his six years on campus that he wouldn’t finish, particularly because
he faced a language barrier.

As Commencement ended, the new alumni threw up their mortarboards before
heading out FitzRandolph Gate. After picking up her diploma, Camillie
Landron ’07, her voice hoarse, said she always would remember “crossing
the FitzRandolph Gate with my freshman-year roommates.”

Raymond Bilderbeck ’07 wondered about what is to come. He wished
he could remain on Princeton’s “cozy” campus for a few
more years, he said. “The real world,” Bilderbeck said, “is
not an inviting place.”

By K.F.G.

To see a slide show with more photos of Commencement 2007, click
here.

To
the Class of 2007

“One definition of an intellectual is someone who sees things
working in practice and wonders if they’ll work in theory. Seeing
an apple fall inspired Newton’s theory of gravity. Like [Nobel laureate
Robert] Lucas, I also see things working the other way around. The purpose
of the passion for intellectual inquiry that Princeton gave us is the
use of ideas to improve the world we share. In each area of study at this
University and in every profession you will enter, there are questions
so important that it is, or should be, hard to think about anything else.”

Valedictorian Eric Glen Weyl ’07

“The
professors were perched like vultures upon columns eager to swoop down
upon the students who failed to compose polished theses. But the students
had long neglected the ancient festivals of this institution, no longer
wading deep in generous libations of the ambrosia of the gods. And so
each spring, aging hordes shall return to drink with feigned revelry within
imprisoned stalls and empty their pockets to build more halls” [translated
from the Latin].

W. Sanderson Detwiler 1903 Prize (awarded by the class
to the senior who has done the most for the class): Jim Williamson

Class of 1901 Medal (awarded by the class to the senior
who has done the most for Princeton): Alex Lenahan

Priscilla Glickman ’92 Memorial Prize (to a student
who has demonstrated independence and imagination in community service):
Drew Frederick

John Fleming
*63

Baccalaureate

In a Baccalaureate address that ranged from the mischievous to the profound,
John Fleming *63 bid a bittersweet farewell to the Class of 2007 —
or, in his words, to the “Class of Destiny.”

“You are the last Princeton class I ever will really know,”
said Fleming, who retired last year after four decades at the University.

He quickly set his audience laughing, poking fun at himself, President
Tilghman, and pretentious young people who don’t read the sixth-century
philosopher Boethius. But his speech (click here to read) centered on “noblesse oblige,” and argued that Princetonians
must use their elite education to do good.

“As compared with most Americans you will make more money, enjoy
better health, live in better housing, have better prospects for your
children, go to the Caribbean more often and to the state penitentiary
less often,” Fleming told the seniors. “Some of your privilege
is defensible; much of it is not.”

The professor then noted the United Nations Millennium Development Goals,
particularly one calling for all children in the world to have access
to a complete primary education by the year 2015. “I fear there
is not a ghost of a chance of fulfilling this ... goal by 2015,”
he said. “The problem is not money. The estimate is that it would
cost about $10 billion a year. That is chump change. That is half of what
Americans spend each year on ice cream. No, the problem is that my generation
... is too tired, or too timid, or too distracted to come up with the
requisite imagination and will. We don’t want to live in a world
where a hundred million kids have no chance to go to school, but we are
leaving it up to you to do something about it.”

Reflecting on earlier encounters with past students, he concluded with
the hope that he would run into the “Destinarians” again.

Seven men and women received honorary degrees in recognition
of their achievements. (Italicized text is drawn from their citations.)

MUHAMMAD ALI, DOCTOR OF HUMANITIES Championship boxer
and humanitarian. Acclaimed throughout the world as the most gifted,
most imaginative, most audacious, and most courageous of heavyweight boxing
champions, he has long been revered as one of the great athletes of all
time. Unwavering in his moral commitments, he has fought tenaciously outside
the ring for freedom of conscience, for equality and justice, and for
the dignity and emancipation of all people.

NORMAN AUGUSTINE ’57 *59, DOCTOR OF LAWS Former
chief executive officer and chairman of Lockheed Martin Corp. Ever
guided by his moral compass and ever clear-eyed about his commitment to
excellence, he steered one of America’s most crucial industries
safely through the rocky uncertainties of a Cold War world. His clarion
call challenged his nation to rise above the gathering storm and face
squarely the risks and opportunities that lie ahead in the uncharted future
of science and technology.

ELIZABETH BLACKBURN, DOCTOR OF SCIENCE Morris Herzstein
Professor of Biology and Physiology at the University of California–San
Francisco. In her lab, she focuses on the tips of chromosomes. ...
In her career, she has bridged departments, created new fields of inquiry,
inspired students, and personified integrity. In her public life, she
has held policymakers and scientists to the highest ethical standards
... .

ROBERT FAGLES, DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS Princeton’s
Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Comparative Literature, emeritus.
We tell here of his four decades of feats on behalf of Princeton,
as the founding father of comparative literature, as a gracious and wise
colleague, and as an inspiring mentor and teacher. His translations bring
to life not just the words but the unquenchable spirit of the ancient
masterpieces, as through his verses he takes us once more to the windy
plain of Troy, across the wine-dark sea, and to the high walls of Rome.

LASALLE D. LEFFALL JR., DOCTOR OF SCIENCE Cancer surgeon
and researcher. By combining his extensive medical knowledge with
compassion and determination, he has forged formidable weapons against
life-threatening disease, while nurturing a new generation of doctors
to carry on his good work. Knowing that no cure can be effective if access
to it is denied, he has championed life-affirming public policy, especially
for African-Americans and economically disadvantaged populations.

FRITZ STERN, DOCTOR OF HUMANE LETTERS Historian and
University Professor, emeritus, at Columbia University. An exile from
Hitler’s Germany, at home on both sides of the Atlantic; a public
intellectual in Germany and in the United States; and a superb scholar
equally at ease before an audience of legislators, public servants, or
university students, he has enlightened us all. ... He wove in his writings
an intricate tapestry on grand themes of German and European history,
and on the fragility of democracy in the modern world.

TWYLA THARP, DOCTOR OF FINE ARTS Choreographer and
director. Classicist and postmodernist, traditionalist and iconoclast,
disciplinarian and clown, she has proved through her work that no human
movement is alien to her. ... Whitmanesque in the breadth, force, and
freshness of her vision, ambition, and achievement, she has staged the
body electric in ways that have expanded the range of how and what dance
might mean and, in doing so, has won dance new audiences.

Bradley Whitford
(John Jameson ’04/Office of Communications)

CLASS
DAY

Perhaps not surprisingly, Bradley Whitford, the actor known for his
roles on The West Wing and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,
devoted his Class Day talk June 4 largely to politics and entertainment.

Even if a presidential candidate is more qualified than his opponents
to lead the nation, the candidate will not have a chance if he is “bad
on TV,” Whitford said. The actor faulted television and press coverage
of elections for focusing on a candidate’s image instead of the
substance of his or her ideas. Weaving in jabs at the Republican party
along the way, Whitford – who with his wife has founded two nonprofit
organizations — warned the seniors to “beware of show business”
when making decisions about candidates and about issues such as global
warming, and he urged them to take an active part in discussing the future
of democracy.

He also offered his assessment of one popular world leader: “I
love Martin Sheen [President Bartlett on The West Wing], but I guarantee
you he’d be a terrible president.”

At the University of Chicago’s “Applications of Economics”
seminar series, top economists sift through every detail of a presenter’s
work and challenge key points to see how well the research is supported.
The venue is “perhaps the toughest place to give a paper in economics,”
according to Princeton professor José Scheinkman, who taught at
Chicago for 25 years. It can be intimidating even for seasoned professionals.

Yet there was Eric Glen Weyl ’07, this year’s valedictorian,
plunging into the cauldron last February to present a paper on two-sided
markets — markets like the credit-card industry, in which companies
have to balance the rates they charge to both cardholders and merchants.
Weyl was invited by Nobel laureate Gary Becker ’51, and he practiced
his presentation for weeks in advance, rehearsing for anyone who would
listen — friends, classmates, professors. Still, nothing could prepare
him for the thorough critique he received from the Chicago faculty. “I
felt like I was being torn to pieces,” Weyl said. “[But] they
came up to me at the end, patted me on the back, and said, ‘Great
job, you really held up well.’”

The trip to Chicago was the latest example of Weyl showing economic
aptitude well beyond his years. The Palo Alto, Calif., native started
young; he estimates that he read 30,000 pages of economics texts by the
time he finished middle school. He became a regular visitor to Stanford’s
Hoover Institution, where he conversed with top economists, and he held
a brief but memorable correspondence with Nobelist Milton Friedman, who
questioned whether the age Weyl mentioned in his introductory letter —
13 — was a typo. Economics captured Weyl’s imagination in
a way that no other subject had.

At Princeton, Weyl, who goes by Glen, started taking graduate-level
economics classes as a sophomore, and by the time he stood at the Commencement
podium in June, he had completed all the coursework required for a Ph.D.
Next year, he plans to write his dissertation.

Scheinkman, Weyl’s senior thesis and Ph.D. adviser, said he is
“very mature as an economist,” showing composure both as a
student and as a teaching assistant in one of Scheinkman’s graduate
courses. “Essentially, he leads the life of a graduate student,
and graduate school is known to be a very stressful time for most people,”
Scheinkman said, “so it’s kind of remarkable to see how little
stress Glen has.”

Weyl led a well-rounded existence as an undergraduate, writing movie
reviews for The Daily Princetonian in his freshman and sophomore
years and starting a free-trade advocacy group called Princeton Against
Protectionism as a junior. In the economics department, he earned a reputation
as someone with an “eye for interesting economics questions,”
according to graduate student Martin Oehmke, and professors outside the
department also have been impressed with Weyl’s insight and inquisitiveness.
“He’s a student who keeps his teachers on their toes,”
said computer science professor Robert Schapire, who taught Weyl in three
courses.

Weyl has held summer jobs in the private and public sectors, designing
an arbitrage strategy for a hedge fund and researching two-sided markets
for the Department of Justice. While both positions had their rewards,
Weyl said, his career path points toward academia.

“The questions that economists think about are, to me, of such
mind-blowing importance and so vivid and so elegant and beautiful in a
certain sense, that it’s hard for me to imagine not getting so engrossed
with them,” Weyl said. “I’d better be doing it as my
profession.”

By B.T.

(Frank Wojciechowski)

Academic
Attire

Advanced-degree recipients were honored at the Graduate School’s
annual hooding ceremony, held Monday, June 4, at McCarter Theatre. Here,
Frankki Jo Bevins, who received her master’s degree in public affairs,
gets her academic hood from Doug Clark, professor of computer science.
President Tilghman and Graduate School Dean William Russel presided over
the event.